I have decided to make the inaugural Word of the Week the very same word after which I named this blog. Cool name, right? I like to think it is the name of a super-villain or the name of a pet koala, Peri. In fact, I discovered this word when I was looking for names for cyber-pets when I was growing up. My parents did not think me capable of handling a real pet so I went to technology. Remember those things? Our generation will be plagued with the shame of having tiny keychain pets taken away in school. Former generations, I don't know, walkmans, slide-rules or something and the subsequent generations, blackberries and blueteeth. We, we had mini, pretend pets.
Yes, so I wanted a name for this pet. What did my 8-year-old self turn to? An encyclopaedia titled "Astronomy". I spent about an hour, curled up on my parents floor looking for cool words. I came across a doozie: perigalacticon. It sounds like the name of a star ship.
In fact, it is a little less interesting than an intergalactic star ship, or an evil over-lord, or a cute koala or cheeky monkey (these are the pets I want), but only a little less interesting. So, you have a galaxy, filled with stars and the stars orbit around the centre of the galaxy. The orbit is not a perfect circle and there is one point where the star is the closest to the middle. That point is the 'perigalacticon' of the star's orbit. Cool, right?
Now find a way to work that in to your dialogue today. Good luck!
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